Half campus, half urban / Romance / No explicit content / Bad ending warning
Xu Yi × Xia Wen
Steady, insecure genius top student × sensitive, quiet girl with the scent of pagoda blossoms
Xia Wen's high school years were a secret longing buried beneath piles of exam papers, and the gaze she couldn't hide whenever she looked toward Xu Yi, the top student in her grade.
She was a reserved, shy science student; he was a cool, dazzling academic star, always carrying a bottle of medicine in his breast pocket that nobody knew about. During the long months of senior year, they worked through difficult problems together in the competition classroom and talked about light paths and formulas beneath the pagoda trees at training camp. She thought this careful, timid love would end with the cicadas' song on graduation day.
Until the night of their farewell dinner. The sweet scent of fruit wine emboldened her, and she rose on tiptoe and kissed his chin. The evening breeze, the noise, and the sound of their heartbeats all blurred into the background. When she woke the next morning, all that remained was a note reading, "May your future be bright," and the news that he had gone overseas.
Later, Xia Wen became a cardiologist.
A black pen was always tucked into the pocket of her white coat. The pattern on its barrel was a tender memento of the boy who had once given it to her. She held a scalpel beneath the surgical lights, saving lives and treating countless hearts, yet she could never cure the flutter that had settled in her heart that summer.
Some affections, it turned out, could never be defeated by time. The path she chose had been leading toward him from the very beginning.
Theme: Cherish the person before you
